Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk is a pretty smart guy. He’s done well to weather the storm of an ownership change in Dallas and keeps the Stars rolling along as a team that challenges for the playoffs.

While the Stars have hit a skid recently, he knows that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and as he tells Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News, that’s the exact message he’s giving his team while they go through a stretch of losing games and players to injury.

“There are X’s and O’s, that are costing us right now, but it’s more important how we feel as a group,” Nieuwendyk said. “The reality is if we win [today], we’re two points out with two games in hand. These are tough times, for sure, but you’ve got think they make you stronger when you get back going the way you want to be.”

The Stars are right in the thick of the playoff hunt despite losing five in a row and six of their last seven. With Mike Ribeiro and Jamie Benn returning to action soon, things should get turned around.

Dallas has a fight on their hands, however, for the postseason with Colorado, Minnesota, Calgary, and Phoenix all in the mix with them and a surging Anaheim roaring up from behind.

Minnesota Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk has been the most difficult goalies to score against this season. Leave it to a high-level player like Leon Draisaitl to make it look this, well, “easy.”

Draisaitl scored his 13th goal of 2016-17 by capping this pretty give-and-go play with Benoit Pouliot. You can see the frustration from Dubnyk at the end of the tally, as if he was saying “How was I supposed to stop that?” (though probably with more colorful language).

Draisaitl came into Friday with five goals and three assists in his last five games, so he’s been almost unstoppable lately.